Originally published at National Catholic Register
ANALYSIS: The Synod on Synodality will have an important epilogue in the conclusions of the study groups to which Pope Francis entrusted the most controversial issues, including the question of women in ministry.
The Vatican Synod on Synodality, which concluded on Sunday, was once widely expected to open the door to dramatic, even revolutionary, changes in the Catholic Church. Progressives hoped and conservatives feared that the assembly might issue calls for women’s ordination to the diaconate or even higher ranks of clergy; acceptance of same-sex relationships; and liberalization in other areas, including the Church’s traditional teaching against contraception.
In the end, no such statements appeared in the final document, which Pope Francis approved on Saturday. The most controversial passage was a statement that the question of women’s access to the diaconate “remains open,” words that sit uneasily, though not irreconcilably so, with the Pope’s statement earlier this year that women are not eligible for holy orders.
Many might therefore be tempted to treat the entire three-year undertaking, which began with local consultations in dioceses around the world and passed through national and continental phases before culminating in two, monthlong assemblies at the Vatican, as an expensive and time-consuming bureaucratic
